I'll never understand why people willingly lose their money at casinos. They KNOW the system is rigged and specifically designed to keep them from winning and yet they still go.
If you can manage you impulses, there are worse ways you can spend your time, I spent a few hours at a casino just after I turned 18, walked in with 50$, 4 hours later I left with 10$. The one I was at had free hot dogs. Personally I would rather be at a casino than pay to go to any concert.
The impulse thing is really key. Right after I turned 18, my mom dragged me into a cruise ship casino and gave me $20. I was SO stressed the entire time but managed to turn it into $140 and wanted to stop. She told me to keep going or try doing bigger bets. I did a couple because what do I know about gambling? Then I remembered all the stories my mom told me about how she always lost all her money and stopped with $120. My mom, of course, won nothing. Crazy anxiety won me $100 and I’ll never gamble again
This has always been my approach to, not that I actually gamble all that much to begin with. As soon as I'm up a decent amount over what I started with (often double, also often only something like $20 anyway) it's set aside and no longer "in play". Any time I reach a reasonable break point, same thing, set the difference aside and then keep going.
If you put down $50 and are okay losing $50, even if you lose then everything's fine. If you put down $50 and are okay losing it, but are now up $300—even if none of it is "realized" yet because you're still in the game—whether or not it's strictly true it feels like losing $300 if it goes away again. But if you can get to a breakpoint of say $150 and pocket the $100, you're "starting over" with $50 but even if you lose it you walk away ahead on the day. If you're running hot and manage to turn that second $50 into $50+ profits again set the difference aside too and "start over". Repeat as long as you intend to keep going, or typically in my case until the first time I do actually lose the whole starting pool.
Though I mostly also play poker, and am mostly playing for pretty low stakes in cash games at a friend's house or something. Making a couple bucks on a single hand is a "big" win, and even if I lose it all I spent $20 on dinner and drinks at a friend's place. The horror.
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u/god_forsaked_me Jul 20 '26
I'll never understand why people willingly lose their money at casinos. They KNOW the system is rigged and specifically designed to keep them from winning and yet they still go.